One of the competitive advantages quick-serves have long enjoyed is customer
convenience due to the shorter cook times and the ability for the customer to pick up their
food in a drive-thru or drive-in. That’s no longer the case. I recently passed a full-service
restaurant that had a drive-thru for call-ahead and pickup orders. While it might sound
crazy, it’s not that far-fetched. With so many full-service restaurants offering to-go and
curbside pickup, drive-thrus are not far behind for them. Either way, the advantage you
once had is shrinking.
Additionally, at many restaurants you can order online or talk to a call center that handles
the to-go calls. Having run a large call center/web booking service for a family
entertainment chain, I’ve seen the benefits of professional sales staff not only improve
sales, but also the quality of the phone experience for the customer.
How can your customers order from you today? Dine-in and wait in line. Drive-thru and
talk to a speaker box. Phone ahead? Not in too many places. Fax it in and hope someone
sees the fax so the food is ready when you arrive. Not too many good options. Expensive?
It might seem to be, but it’s similar to credit card acceptance — if it brings in incremental
business, the investment is worth it.
By making it easier for the customer to order and pick up their food, what happens?
Dine-in. Phone stops ringing but the cash register doesn’t. Put in an express line or
entrance with a dedicated POS terminal (or a wireless payment device) to get these folks
through quickly.
Drive-thru. Think about wireless payment acceptance in the drive-thru line. Not only
does it help these customers, but you can help bust the line during peak times by taking
orders and accepting credit/debit payments to speed up at-the-window times.
Order sizes get larger. Allowing the customer to pre-order (and pre-pay) will increase the
size of your average order. All of a sudden one customer can now come in and pick up the
order for the entire office, without the need to pay for each one individually and slow the
time down.
Customer base expands. You can now target companies in your local trade area to
promote an even faster level of service, since the customers can pre-order and pre-pay.
Cha-ching! A new market for you to reach.
Do you feel threatened or challenged? Develop the systems to crush the competition and
expand your sales into new areas by rising to the occasion!
T.J. Schier is service professional, consultant and speaker with over 20 years experience in operations and training. Founder and president of Incentivize Solutions and podTraining, T.J. has helped numerous clients enhance their service and training programs and spoken to tens of thousands of managers, franchisees and operators in various fields. Visit http://IncentivizeSolutions.com/ for more info motivating today’s employees, training today’s generation and delivering outstanding guest service; or http://podTraining.us/, a unique new system and the foundation of ‘i-learning’ - using the device of today’s generation, the iPod - to train your workforce.
Tags: drive thru business, managing a restaurant, restaurant management, running a restaurant